Leadership - Show Your Office You Can Lead - The Muse

Leadership - Show Your Office You Can Lead - The MuseLeadership - Show Your Office You Can Lead Its possibly the toughest transition youll make in your career the shift from doing to leading. If youve made a name for yourself as a rock star high performer and are recognized as a high-potential emerging leader, the day will soon come when youll have to stop doing everything youre great at and discard the strengths that got you to where you are today to become an effective leader. You see, those skills- things like your subject matter expertise, your just do it track record of execution, and your ability to take a task and run with it without close supervision- can actually derail you as a manager if you keep trying to accomplish things the way youve always done them. As a leader, its no longer your responsibility to do. Its your job to help others do the tasks- and do them well. Leading and doing are polar opposites, and it can be hard to switch hit and start swinging in the other dir ection- but swing you must if youre ever to be mora than just a doer. Even if youre not in a management position yet, you can start learning this skill. To give you a head start, here are three things you can learn- and apply- immediately about the transition from doing to leading1. Become an Ex-Specialist and a Well-Rounded GeneralistLeading is all about marshaling your resources and stepping out of your comfort zone. Lisa Walsh, vice president at PepsiCo Sales, says, Youve probably built success as a specialist who is adept at knowing your topic or your area of the business. Its one of the reasons youve gotten promoted. But as you go higher, you will be valued for understanding the business and how various pieces of the business integrate into the whole.So, those company-wide email updates that youve been ignoring? Its time to stop hitting delete and start mining them for information that can contribute to your knowledge of whats going on outside your department. In addition, star t networking outside your team, looking for people like yourself who are subject matter experts trying to broaden their exposure to other areas of the business. As you begin to trade knowledge, youll become each others go-to people. If you work in finance, for instance, recruit some smart new friends in research, engineering, manufacturing, and marketing. Then, you wont only have an expert contact in each of those areas, but by collaborating with them, youll begin to learn that knowledge yourself and become more well-rounded within the company. 2. Own Your Failures, Not Your SuccessesUntil now, youve probably made a point of showcasing your accomplishments and promoting your value up the chain of command. Its how you got recognized as a high-potential emerging leader in the first place. Well, get ready for that to change. In the transition from doing to leading, youll have to re-evaluate how you deal with successes and failures.Walsh says, Most of us work on high-powered teams, but every team needs a leader. You have to be willing to put yourself out there, take risks, and take responsibility for both successes and failures. Thats what makes a great leader.The Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu once said, When the best leaders work is done, the people say, We did it ourselves. To be a great leader, youll need to get in the habit of letting your team own the wins, while you assume responsibility for risks and failures.According to a CFO with Bank of America, true leaders are humble enough to apologize publicly and gloat privately. You dont see leaders bragging about their success, she says. They talk about their team and their teams contributions. And if they feel really good about themselves, they boast at home or with a close friend, but not publicly. Whats more, a leader will apologize and take accountability for his or her actions when things go wrong.So, how can up-and-coming leaders display this skill, even if theyre not in a leadership role yet? Next time a gro up youve worked with achieves a big win, publicly acknowledge each individual for his or her effort. And next time the team suffers a setback, dont play the blame game. Instead, raise your hand to be the one to deliver the bad news to management, along with a plan for how the team can move forward.3. Turn Your To-Do List Into a To-Lead ListThe best way to learn leadership skills is not to wait until you are promoted, but to take on a management challenge first, regardless of whether youre in a supervisory position.Your challenge is this Identify a task or a project that is currently on your to-do list, such as an assignment at work or, if theres nothing suitable on-site, a project outside of work, such as a charitable drive or a professional association event. Then, try to achieve the end result by leading- not doing- the work. For example, if you work in HR, you might be the go-to person to stay up late finessing the PowerPoint deck the night before a big presentation to the execut ive team. But is this something you could accomplish by leading someone else on the team, rather than doing the work yourself? Those are the questions youll find yourself answering in a leadership position- questions you can practice answering now. To do this well at work, youll need to get to know your peers, the things that motivate them, and their career aspirations. And let your manager know that youre looking for ways to practice your people management and project leadership skills. (To be clear This is not about mindlessly pushing your workload off onto others)Get clear on the goal or end result of the project, share your goal with your manager, and offer to include colleagues who would be excited to get involved. Tie your request to your colleagues to something that you know would benefit them, like Its not just another presentation we have the opportunity to change the way our company handles flex working or Heres an opportunity to show off your graphic design skills. They k ey to success is to make it personal and meaningful.Dont tell them what to do, but work together to create clear goals, expectations, and accountability by asking questions like How will we measure success? What steps do we need to take to make that happen? How will we hold ourselves accountable? and How will we celebrate when we achieve this? By shifting the focus away from yourself and onto a team member, youll learn the valuable art of leadership while still working one-on-one with a trusted collaborator. So there you have it To make the leap from employee to leader, move from specialist to generalist, let the team own the wins while you own the failures, and turn your to-do list into a to-lead list.In short, dont just do it- lead itPhoto of flock of birds courtesy of Shutterstock.